My apology to the Horde (8.2.5 spoilers)

The more I ruminate on the War Campaign’s “thrilling” conclusion, the less and less I like it.

Not because it was anticlimactic (which it was), or because it lacked catharsis (which it did), but because of what it means for the Horde.

The reveal that Sylvanas is Azeroth’s next Big Bad has diminished and toxified the Horde’s every accomplishment over the course of BfA. The War of the Thorns, the War Campaign, Arathi, Darkshore, every blow struck against the Alliance, every victory, every triumph, was done in the name and at the behest of someone who not only does not care about the Horde, but who would see it destroyed. BfA has seen the Horde made a faction of pawns, and its players unwitting mooks for the Lich King’s heir apparent.

Meanwhile, while the Alliance has been battered, victimized, and spat upon (and none moreso than the night elves), their every action has been rendered heroic. We now know that every blow struck against the Horde was not merely a blow struck against a political rival, but a blow struck against a force that would see every life on Azeroth put to the torch. The Alliance’s gleaming white armor is not only untarnished, it shines all the brighter.

And that’s not fair.

I’m pretty sure Alliance players didn’t sign up to be Azeroth’s victim-saviors, and I’m damn sure Horde players didn’t sign up to be unthinking goons.

It’s not right that only one faction gets to play the hero (albeit at a steep cost), while the other gets everything they’ve achieved retroactively tainted.

Both factions should get to feel heroic. Both factions should get to play the hero.

So… I’m sorry, Hordies. None of this feels fair. I can only hope Blizzard does right by you, by all of us, the next time around.

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I wish more wars could end with someone accidentally hurting my feelings and flying off into the horizon.

10/10, totally worth burning down that big tree

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I dunno about you but I don’t feel heroic, especially when it’s not heroism-by-comparison.

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Yeah okay…

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One of the things that sticks with me is the loyalist ending, redside, where it’s flat out confirmed that what matters to Sylvanas is bodycount, not whose bodies.

Which suddenly makes Sylvanas throwing all her advantages away and always being willing to risk Horde lives for very little make sense.

It’s a lot easier to convince people who believe in you, will follow your orders, and trust you to march to their deaths than enemies.

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The cinematic didn’t end much because the war didn’t feel like much of a war.

She called everyone weak and flew away. She didn’t reveal her motivations. There’s still plenty of absurd nonsense to come.

We can guess at them, sure, but that’s the cheap trick Blizz is gunning for.

We don’t know if she’s going to be a “big bad”, have revealed motivations that “surprise” some of us or is barely seen or mentioned for 3 expansions. This is blizzard.

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I’m feeling pretty heroic.

Standing against the Horde as they marched into Ashenvale, fighting to oust the Horde from Arathi, liberating Darkshore, slaying vampires, snatching destructive artifacts away from the bad guys, knowing that everything I’ve done as an Alliance player has hindered Lich Queen Sylvanas in some way…

It feels pretty good. Not great, because of all the, you know, victimization. But pretty good.

She did in the loyalist epilogue. She’s working with Azshara to pull one over on N’zoth so he’ll kill a bunch of people in Death’s (with a capital D) name.

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She does in the Loyalist ending. She wanted the Alliance and the Horde to kill one another to make bodies for her to raise, and then have the survivors fight against N’zoth, producing even more corpses, including that of an Old God.

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And we lost.

They’re still there.

Huh?

Sort of.

We took away their toys.

And yet we weren’t even an afterthought.

I get that you’re trying to spin this positively, but you’re setting the lowest bar possible. The Alliance never struck back against the Horde, they just struck at Horde-adjacent targets: killing Rastakhan, stopping even bigger atrocities doesn’t really feel heroic so much as it just feels like a desperate bid to survive.

I know I’m a hardliner on this issue and I refuse to change that stance, but to me? The expansion was very fair to the Horde.

You get the spotlight, you get total control of the story, your decisions get to matter. But you’re the bad guy and you always will be.

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I approve of the attempt to include Horde players in the understandable outrage. I approach it by different reasoning.

Specifically, I see the story as obnoxious because Blizzard insists on making decisions that screw over the Alliance. However, in their justifications and backpedaling for their decisions that constantly screw over the Alliance, they then make fools out of people’s favorite Horde characters.

But, I think the conclusion is the same. Recognize that the Alliance is constantly screwed and doesn’t feel good at all (well, maybe you do, in which case, good for you). But, Horde players don’t feel good either, because Sylvanas just got her character assassinated.

Being more fair to the Alliance (and, say, night elves) fixes people’s problems with the Horde story, too, because then they can be badasses that smack people in blue without being utterly ridiculous or obviously villainous. They get to be badasses by ensuring that the people in blue are also badasses that smack the people in red sometimes.

But, I agree. Horde players are getting screwed in a meaningful way, too. Everyone gets to be upset with the story. It’s no one’s fault. No one has to feel bad.

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I’m not sure I see the fairness in that.

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The part where they got to drive the story again.

When they’re the bad guy next time, they’ll get to drive that story, too.

You want to drive? You have to be the villain. That’s a hard and fast rule of Blizzard.

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Nice I need to see all that — at work in Australia!

So why are people saying she was working FOR Nzoth?!

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For what it’s worth I have often been both a mook and a goon, sometimes simultaneously. It has the merit of being largely amoral, since you can mook or goon around for whoever’s picking up the tab.

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Getting to drive the story at the cost of the story crapping all over you doesn’t seem that fair to me. Why is being in the spotlight a positive if said spotlight is so hot it’s melting your skin off?

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What Kaziimir said. Few of us wanted this. I can understand a storyline that is a bit controversial, but this bordered on insanity in the beginning and we were forced to ‘suck it up and eat the slop you get served’. That’s not remotely fair to us.

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Because the alternative is getting left out entirely?

Like, sure, the Horde got a raw deal. But the Alliance got it worse. Let’s be cognizant of that and center that.

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This is blizzard.

Wrathion played both sides in MoP and caused WoD because he was afraid we were too weak to fight the legion.

Then he wasn’t in Legion.

Expect anything. Even: No Sylvanas for an expac or two and she returns blonde again thanks to an off-screen redemption from Elune.

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I mean, we already have Forsaken players sniping at each other in a different thread, and that’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.

The Horde gets yet another story that’s schismatic that will lead to actual, for real conflict between actual, for real people.

I don’t count that as a positive, even if they got to “drive” the story (into the ground).

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